Day 4 - February 23 - Zig-zagging

Neither the town of Hadera, nor my tiny cell compelle me to stay much longer, so I was already up in the saddle at 6:30 am. It was a relatively smooth ride in the fresh, morning air to the modern city of Netanya., with over 200,000 inhabitants and 14 kilometers of beaches.

Just before getting into the downtown, I rode by a residential area. There I was amazed by the sight cliffs casting their shadows on the beach. I chatted with a woman sipping her coffee, she worked for the largest bank in Israel and was able to work in home office most of the days. She lived 5 minutes from the shore, got her coffee and started the day by greeting the rays of the sun. I felt jealous, in fact very jealous, of the people living right next to the shoreline...

I had a nice coffee and breakfast close to the beach - yet again getting proof that Israel is an expensive country, think I left €25 behind. Still, it was worth it.

The architecture was quite impressive , one skyscraper overcrowded the next one, some as hotels, others as apartments - the city, for sure, in expanding.

Google Map, to my delight, showed a bike route right next to the sea. I asked some of the city dwellers where it actually began, they looked at me somewhat confused and told me there was no path. I showed them the path on the mobile phone, they shrugged their shoulder. I was supposed to descend to a large, but empty parking lot right next to the sea - and here I started a frantic search for the trailhead. After a while, I found it. Darn! It was really a "trail"-head...it was indeed labelled "National Hiking Trail", but it was a sandy, uneven dirt path. No biking on this with my delicate road bike!

I back-tracked and zig-zagged around to find some acceptable road out of the city - it was not easy. The below picture is the recording of my frantic search for the road out of Netanya.

I did not want to ride on any major high- or freeway en route to Tel Aviv, so I made quite a detour - the reward of this action was a nice, broad road, at least for a while. Even though I did not see a single other biker, but it does seem that it is popular with other riders.

I recall the road led next to a huge, closely guarded jailhouse - anyhow, I soon got to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Here I had no other option than to catch the very busy Highway 2, luckily, only for a short while. After surviving it, , I (yet again) found the Microsoft offices - it keeps haunting me.

Now I was in a cool, modern part of Tel Aviv, with a river parks, cycle road right next to the beach, where there were joggers, cyclists, in-line skaters and people in boats.

It was fun cruising next to the sea - I think I was heading to downtown at top speeds -overtaking all other riders (OK, there were not that many). I found a hype-looking hostel, called The Spot, I played with the thought of spending the night there, but as it was only 3 pm and knew that I would be coming back to this city anyhow (flying out from there), I continued.

I soon found myself downtown, riding down the famous Dizengoff shopping street and then found the Carmel market. I pushed my bike through it and had some very tasty Thai food, while chatting with some other local bikers. A bit outside the market, I bought some rudimentary light for the back of the bike, better than nothing.

I was too optimistic about the state of affairs. It was quickly getting dark and I was no headed with towards the worst parts of Tel Aviv, a mixture of industrial and hooker zones of the city, not far from the airport. I hoped to make it out of town, where dwelling would be cheaper, as nothing in the city was below €100 per night. I gave up and in some rather dubious place, I booked a room for that exact same amount. The "Star Guesthouse" was named so probably in the hopes of getting a one-star rating, if I could have helped it, I would have given none at all - a disgusting-looking place. There was a lot of beds to choose from, I think there were five, I picked one that seemed the cleanest. Wow, €100 for this sh*thoe- incredible. I made some 100 kilometers that day.